Questions facing Chinese feminism: Anti-feminism and anti-LGBTQ+ politics in China since the 2010s

This essay examines the intersections of anti-feminism and anti-LGBTQ+ politics in China since the 2010s. It argues that Chinese feminist and queer practices have been shaped by authoritarian governance, online misogyny, censorship, market logics, nationalism, and internal feminist contestations. While rights-based activism has been increasingly restricted, feminist and queer discourses have not disappeared; instead, they persist through digital debates, cultural production, informal networks, everyday practices, and low-visibility forms of care and mutual support. The essay further challenges reductive readings of China as merely an authoritarian dystopia by situating contemporary struggles within longer histories of socialist feminism, gender fluidity, folk practices, and grassroots life. It suggests that these ambivalent and situated practices may offer alternative resources for global feminist and queer movements.